PASSIONS SPIN THE PLOT

I love watching Venus, the morning star, when she alone is shining in all her glory, in the early morning sky, but my stomach turns if I watch a gory movie. I feel delighted when my daughters make long distance calls to say hallo to me, but I am saddened when I bid them good bye at the IGI airport. I become anxious when I see my seventy plus old wife bear down with arthritic pain, and I'm not amused to see the neighborly Alsatian- deliver its visiting card at my doorstep, first thing in the morning. I exhibit all these emotions of love, hate, joy, grief, anxiety, and anger in my daily commerce with people, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this respect.

I have also had the opportunity of living in close company of quite a few sanyasins, of no mean repute, and I have watched them display all these emotions at one time or the other, from close quarters. So what is the big deal ? What makes them a class apart ? Well, I understand that it is the quality of emotions that clinches the issue. While an evolved person's emotions seem, as if, writ on water; a lesser being's are, sort of, cut in stone. And that makes all the difference.

BabaMuktanand, the sage of

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Ganeshpuri, could be seen flaying an errant neophyte one moment, and breaking into the most beatific smile, you have ever seen, the next moment. He reiterated on so many occasions: " It is my love for you that draws you here from all quarters of the globe, and it is the dread of my displeasure that wakes you up at 2.30 in the morning, and sends you scurrying to the meditation cave, soon after. Just as a vehicle is necessary to carry you to the temple, but it is left outside when you enter the sanctum sanctorum, so also anger is discarded once its role is over". On the contrary, ordinary mortals keep alive the embers of anger, revenge, and hatred not only through their own life spans, but through generations to come. Poor souls, they just don't know how to slough off the straitjackets of their timeworn frames of reference.

Somebody classified human beings into three categories: those who forgive and forget; those who forgive but don't forget; and those who neither forgive nor forget. Enlightened persons occupy the first category; moderates, the second, and hardliners, the last. Once during his itinerancy, Lord Buddha came upon a harebrained guy who, for no apparent reason, started flinging abuses at him. The Enlightened One , as was his wont, didn't react. When the person, having exhausted himself of any new invectives, finally left him, Anand his cousin and disciple, sought a clarification as to why he had borne those uncalled for indignities in silence. The sage's reply was in the form of a counter question: "If somebody offers you a trinket and you don't accept it, where will it remain ?" "With the giver", replied Anand. "So are the invectives with the giver, because I haven't accepted them. They haven't even touched me", said the all Compassionate One. The whole incident failed to make any mark on the Noble One.

With people who don't keep a close watch on their emotions, there is always the danger of emotions caking into emotionality. Yes it is one thing to have emotions, sentiments, or passions, and totally different to become emotional, sentimental, or passionate. Crossing of the hairline outpost of emotions results in obsessions, and infatuations, which ultimately bring untold unhappiness , and misery to everybody around. Says George Meredith:

In tragic life, God wot,No villains need bePassions spin the plot.

Be it the Trojan war, or the Mahabharat; burning of Rome, or burning of Gujrat; nuking of Japanese cities, or kamikaze attacks on the WTC towers; Bamiyan Buddhas, or the BabriMasjid;Auschwitz or My Lai, Tiananmen Square or AbuGhraib, unguarded passions were the real culprits. Riots, murders, molestations, bride-burning, female feticide are indicative of minds scorched with degrading passions. The more people feed their minds on debasing passions, the more their attitudes harden; and the harder the attitudes, the harder becomes propagation of life energy.

When passionate passions ran wild at the time of the BabriMasjid episode, somebody approached Mother Teresa for her comments. Heaving a sigh of anguish, the Mother said: "May God give them strength to forget". Once a disciple of BhagwanNityanand, tipped him off that a particular disciple had eaten fish a couple of days back. The Master's reply was: "That fish went out of him the next day; howcome, it is sitting pretty on your mind even today"? Clinging to past events, things, or people and mulling over them in one's mind goes against the very scheme of Nature. It obstructs the easy flow of life giving energy, and checkmates the way the soul force renews itself. No freedom tastes better than the freedom from gnawing passions. Well said, but how do we tease out these passions ?

Researchers tell us that our minds, on an average, process from about forty to sixty thousand thoughts in 24 hours. Can anybody with such a staggering cerebral traffic, day in and day out, remain normal ? No wonder Freud declared that 99% of all human beings were abnormal in their behaviour. Whenever people cross this limit, the cerebral mechanism simply breaks down and such people find themselves in lunatic asylums. The only way to stay sane is to whittle away thoughts in order to ease off the pressure on the mind. Again well said, but how do we spiral down the traffic ?

Very simple. All good things are so easy to do that people don't give a second thought to them. Make those very things complex and you will find people rising upon their feet to jump into the fray, tooth and nail. And why shouldn't they when it becomes so challenging as to provide an opportunity for their egos to play a role ? Man is ever hungry for acts that invite the other's attention. And therein lies his damnation. God is not a sadist who makes us miserable. we ourselves chart our route to unhappiness. God has made His creation self-propelling, only if our clouded minds let us see it. Basho, a zen mystic puts it so succinctly :

Sitting silently, doing nothingSpring comesAnd grass grows by itself.

But before moving further, I would like to talk about a peculiar trait of the mind. You may be surprised to know that the mind has a fondness for petty things. Insignificant things are its fodder. It absorbs them and then enjoys chewing the cud, from one lifetime to the other ad infinitum. Even in sleep it recreates them in the form of dreams. This is an endless pastime for it. But whenever it confronts something really great, really sublime, it becomes overwhelmed and loses its stridency. So my friends, just come out of your closets and watch the vastness of the ocean if you live by one; or take stock of the rippling mountain ranges if you are tucked in the hills; or just lie supine, alfresco, and watch the clear, limitless skies, if you are a plains man. You will experience a reversal of the roles after a while-- your mind losing its riotousness and dancing to your tune. My friends, I am neither a dream peddler( I don't live in the future), nor a stick-in-the-mud( I have said goodbye to the past). The present is the only reality for me and so I live in the present. I enjoin upon you to share the Infinite with me right now, wherever you happen to be:

Whose sky this is, I need not knowI lie supine and watch it growIt grows and grows and turns so bigIt knows not what is high or low.

It wraps me up and enters meThe world is out and I am freeAnon, I forget who is whoI'm in it or it's in me.

The sky is vast but vaster hereA space is in, lit and clearWhere heart melts at each beatHow sad, nobody seems aware.

Friends, as you lie under the skyDon't forget to forget everythingBut watch the sky till tears roll byDon't be surprised if joy comes by.

Claim this joy of a silenced mind. No one else can do it for you. Only you can do it because only you know the numbers of your combination lock. You don't have to observe any appeasing rituals or enter the puja room with a begging list. The Infinite is available to everybody, everywhere, and at all times. Why should we dry up our hearts with the ceaseless cry of more and more. Why shouldn't we embrace the 'Whole' ? More, more is the cry of a mistaken soul, sang William Blake, Nothing less than All will ever satisfy the soul of man.